Ammunition
by Pingpong
Summary: One shot. Set during Guild Wars: Prophecies. Khora Ai is insecure and Mortimer Mortag is just the jerk to exploit that. A glimpse at their evolving relationship and Khora's fears. Part of the Ai Sisterhood series.


Khora sat, legs tucked under her, at the edge of the small inland pool of ocean water watching the water lap at the small wall that contained it. She was thinking about a lot of things; the mutability of water, the muscles that ached viciously throughout her body from hard travel. She thought of the long trek that had taken her far from her home and stolen the life of the Prince who had been a prominent, if distant, figure for her and every subject of Ascalon.

And, mixed in with these thoughts and the sorrow at Prince Rurik's death were the thoughts of Mortimer.

She was hiding from him, and had been hiding since they departed Lion's Arch. It was a cowardly thing to do, but her tolerance for his biting remarks was used up by the stress of the journey and she refused to show him how deeply some of his casually thrown remarks cut her. She had _some_ pride.

If she was honest with herself, she was also hiding from her sister, Elandra. Her twin, who appeared in her life just weeks before, was everything she was not - aloof, powerful and exotic with her Canthan upbringing. Khora felt inadequate next to Elandra, her elder by only minutes but who outpaced her in everything, from spells to dealing with Mortimer. Khora knew it was foolish to compare herself, the youngest daughter of a minor nobleman raised on a small but abundant holding, to Elandra, who was raised from birth to be the best Elementalist her House had ever seen. But she felt, against all rationality, that in some way she should be operating on a comparitive level with her twin.

Khora snorted to herself, remembering the pitiful Meteor she'd summoned, and her inability to call another one even as Elandra demonstrated a whole shower of them. And Mortimer had been there, watching her with that cruel glint in his eye, storing ammunition for later to sting her with.

Mortimer. She sighed and twisted, tucking her legs to her chest andresting her chin on her knees so she could look out over the ocean. Since their furious and spell-filled meeting in the Breach, she had found herself inexplicably pining after the towering Necromancer. She tried to tamp it down, she really did. His often horrific acts and snide manner should have made it easy for her to dismiss him as below her and unworthy of her time. However even after all the things he'd done and said to her, she found herself admiring the smooth flow of movement as he cast spells or looking for some semblance of humanity under his volatile and often harsh exterior. She wasted hours dissecting his idle threats and cutting remarks, but she didn't know what she was looking for or if anything was even there to find.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking that made her do such a thing; she had led a relatively sheltered life before the Searing. She knew that. She'd not even known her propensity for fire was a mark of her being an Elementalist until she joined the Ascalonian army for lack of a home. Given the barest training available and sent out to live or die by her wits, Khora was somewhat tarnished by what she'd seen and done in those couple years, but she still felt childish and inexperienced compared to the others she traveled with.

To add to her worries, there was something that would not leave her alone, would not let her leave Mortimer alone. Something that made her blurt silly things out and embarass herself in front of him time and again. And each time she came away near tears of rage, only her considerable pride keeping them restrained until she was alone. But she kept going back, kept prodding and goading him in hopes of... what?

She wished she knew.

The tide was coming in and the pool rose enough to make a suitable bathing pool. That was the excuse she'd used to escape the empty eyes of Erisi, mourning her dead Prince, and the feeling of incompetence that Mortimer and Elandra inspired in her as they glibly debated casting styles and Mortimer unbearably flirted with Elandra. That stung, even if Elandra coolly rebuffed him each time, obviously uninterested.

There was a churning in her gut at the thought and Khora pushing the thoughts aside, reminding herself they would do no good. With a cursory look around to make sure no one was around, she shed the stiff new armor Elandra had had crafted for her in Lion's Arch and slipped into the sea, sighing as the element closed around her.

The murmur of the ocean immediately entered her mind, something Khora had been looking forward to. It wasn't quite a voice and there was no actual speech. It was more like thoughts in her mind that weren't her own, hinting at vast stretches of undisturbed water, fathomless depths and fantastic sea creatures. She was only somewhat comfortable manipulating water, the opposite of her home element fire, but she was an Elementalist and the ocean sensed it, embracing her with all the enthusiasm of an old friend.

It was soothing, the wash of water on her body and the whisper of the ocean in her mind. Even as water was the opposite of fire, the relaxing feeling it inspired was also the opposite of the reckless ecstacy she experienced when she touched fire. She spent some time floating on her back, enjoying the calm and let the water take away the stress, the worry and fear and the grief that had been dragging her down.

Refreshed, Khora felt suddenly playful and chuckled to herself as she stroked around the inland pool of seawater, diving to touch the pale sandy bottom and dig for shells. She placed each find on the lip of ground she'd been sitting on and went back for more, smiling for the first time in weeks as she found a pretty one, deep blue and shimmery. She found several more, but none as pretty as the blue one and even dug up an unfamiliar coin, buried deep in the sand. As she placed that near her other finds, she realized that she had to kick a little harder to reach the lip. A frown marred her face; the sun had started setting and the tide was slowly starting its trip back out.

The ocean was warm, but the evening air promised to be a somewhat chilly and she shivered as she hooked her elbows on the edge of the ground. Folding her arms, she sighed as she set her chin on them. She didn't want to return to camp and face the tangle of emotions and perceived failings, but she had been gone for hours and was undoubtedly missed.

With a heave and kick of her legs, she vaulted out of the pool and twisted to sit at the edge, feet dangling in the water for a moment as she felt the ocean's connection fade. With one last sigh, she got to her feet and donned her armor, using a bit of her talent to shed the water from her underthings and skin so she wasn't damp. She knew from experience it would chafe. Looking down at herself and the outfit that had far too little coverage to rightly call itself armor, she longed, with a catch of her breath, for the days of loose trousers and old linen shirts when mucking out her pony's stall was the hardest labor she'd ever known.

She stood, head bowed, for a long moment and when she gave one last glance out over the retreating ocean, a falling star streaked toward the horizon. Feeling melancholy and a little silly, she made a wish.

"I wish...," she sighed and rubbed her face. "I wish for the strength to finish this quest, because Balthazar knows I don't have it now." She laughed bitterly. "I wish I can become powerful enough to do my team proud, to not be a liability. I wish for peace afterward." Her throat closed for a moment with the tears gathering in her eyes. She cleared it hastily and swiped at the hated tears.

She picked up the shells she had collected and gently tossed them back into the pool. She had no real use for them and gathering them had only been a playful distraction. The coin went into the small pouch she carried at her waist to be given to Chihiro and added to the team's money. She paused as she picked up the last shell, the almost flat deep blue one. For some unknown reason, she loved the color and thought about keeping it.

Common sense reared its ugly head. What use could she have of it? It would only take up pack space, which was already a precious commodity as it was. But the color drew her eye and soothed her, reminding her of the whisper of the ocean as it welcomed her like a daughter. She ran a finger over the ridges running along the shell and twisted her mouth thoughtfully, wondering if it was charmed and that was the reason for her strange attraction to it.

Still undecided but leaning toward giving into the foolish impulse to keep the potentially magicked shell, she turned to go back to camp; she could always toss it if she needed the small space it would take up. No one would have to know...

Head still bowed, Khora took a step forward and promptly ran into something hard and immovable. She flailed backwards, the shell flying out of her hand, and instinctivly reacted by calling some of the seawater to her to create an ice barrier between her and the unexpected obstacle. It was flimsy enough to reveal a large shape looming beyond it and she flinched when a familiar drawl came from behind it.

"Pathetic," Mortimer said. He easily thrust a fist through the thin ice.

Weariness descended on her, weighing her down. She couldn't deal with him right now, not in her current state, and she knew the best way to get him to move on was to not rise to his taunts. He would eventually get bored and leave her alone.

_Be like Elandra,_ she said to herself, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders for the oncoming confrontation. _Remember the three C's: calm, confident and collected._

But she was not Elandra and Mortimer knew exactly how to unbalance her.

"Where have you been, little Khora?" He obliterated the rest of the ice shield and stalked forward. Her thoughts scattered and she backed up, unable to stand her ground in the face of his advance.

"You've been missing for hours and it does get boring without you around." A wide grin split his face and she frowned at him.

The sun had fully set and his shaggy white hair gleamed in the starlight. She suppressed the irrational urge to step forward and brush the fringe of it out of his face. For a split second, she wondered if she'd gone mad, contemplating such a thing at all and doubly mad since he was obviously in one of his moods. He would probably hex her within an inch of her death for touching him.

"I've been here, bathing," she said, congratulating herself when her voice didn't waver. "Just like I said I was going to."

He looked at her sidelong and quirked an eyebrow. "Bathing for five hours?"

She bristled. "I like to be clean."

He chuckled and casually stepped toward her, eyes glinting with dark amusement when she hurried away from him, keeping the same distance between them. She sidestepped warily, unsure of his sly looks, wondering if he would use any spells on her since they were alone. They hadn't gotten into a casting war since their first meeting, but the possibility was always there. Mortimer was definitely not against using every weapon in his arsenal in a fight, even if she wasn't technically an enemy.

He bent down, motions exaggerated to mock her skittishness and she restrained her urge to snap at him. He straightened, something dark in his hand and her heart dropped when she saw it was the shell she'd been planning to keep.

"Pretty thing," he commented, once again observing her from the corner of his eye as he turned it this way and that, holding it up to catch the moonlight. She tried to control her expression, but she was tired, physically and emotionally, and the tears of despair pricked her eyes. She had no idea why the silly thing was important for her to keep or how Mortimer knew that it wasn't just any shell to her. She shifted her weight from left to right, anxious to see what he would do with it.

He noticed her actions and chuckled, idly toying with the shell as he watched her with hooded eyes. She shifted again nervously, unable to read him, and he grinned again, stepping toward her and obviously enjoying the way she squeaked and skittered away from him. But he simply took a coin from a pouch at his belt and held it up, raising an eyebrow.

"Something for you to dive for next time," he remarked with a trace of amusement in his tone and tossed it into the now shallow pool. She frowned at him, wondering if he'd been watching her and opened her mouth to fire a round of furious words. Before she could, the small coin made an amusing _gloop_ as it hit the water and she couldn't help the startled giggle at the sound. She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at him, surprised at the sudden turn of her emotions.

Face turned toward the ocean, Mortimer smiled.

She was frozen, looking at his face in disbelief.

Not grinned, not smirked. But _smiled_.

Unlike the cruel twist his grin gave his face the smile changed his face dramatically, softening it as his eyes crinkled and lips turned up. He was handsome to begin with, something Khora knew was partly to blame for her attraction to him, but that smile made him beautiful. She wished, vaguely, that he would smile more often and almost gave in to the need she felt in her bones to step to his side. She would be there in three strides, she knew, and she could almost feel the texture of his armor on her fingertips, his calloused palm closing around her hand. Perhaps it could turn into more, under the stars at the edge of the ocean. Perhaps...

But the smile faded from his face and Khora was released from the daze. Realizing what she'd just imagined, she blushed and backed up a few more steps, putting distance between them. She had to escape Mortimer and leave the memory of his smile behind. In her embarassment and the flush of sudden attraction, she even forgot the shell that he still had and her wish to get it back.

Savagely biting her lip, she edged around him, watching him like a frightened animal watched a predator.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, supressing the amused snort as she stumbled on the nearly flat ground she was sidestepping on. As she fled the area, he smiled to himself, a bemused quirk of his mouth as he stared down at the shell. It was the same color as his armor, a deep pearly blue.

He'd been sent to find her a couple hours before by Chihiro and had been unable to resist watching her from the shelter of some tumbled boulders, waiting for the perfect moment to ruin her relaxation. But he quickly found it was... amusing, to watch her playing in the water like a child, laughing to herself as she dove for random flotsam and swimming for the sheer pleasure of it. Every time she broke the surface with something new, her face lit up with her happiness - something he'd never seen so clearly before in the serious and often angry girl.

When she found the blue shell, her obvious delight had stirred something disturbing and unfamiliar in his chest. It made him intensely uncomfortable, although he wasn't sure what he was uncomfortable with.

He'd meant to come down and taunt her in revenge for his uncharacteristic reaction and it had been immeasurably pleasing to see her react to him. But when the sound of the coin hitting the water had startled her to laughter he couldn't help smiling, remembering her playing in the water. It had been a mistake, perhaps, as it drove her away and ended his opportunity to goad her. Although he did wonder what thoughts in her silly head caused that cherry-red blush as she ran away.

He looked once more at the object in his grasp and that awful feeling came again, like someone had knifed him in the chest and twisted the blade. He couldn't place it, having never experienced it before and he vaguely wondered what it could be. Dismissing it and firmly banishing the feeling, he grinned this time. He'd have to be extra hard on the Elementalist for witnessing his moment of unwitting weakness.

And later, Khora found the blue shell in her pack as they broke camp and gazed wide-eyed at Mortimer, unsure how to react.

He leered at her threateningly and shouldered his pack, smiling to himself.

He was going to get _so_ much ammunition out of this.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** The emotion he feels is guilt, something Mortimer shouldn't have the capacity to feel and so doesn't recognize. He is, according to his backstory, essentially a heartless killer, a remorseless and twisted inhuman creation. I hope to get the oneshot of their meeting up soon that will delve deeper into his transformation into what he is in this story, but for some reason this stuff comes out instead.


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